Preview: Skyrim’s Switch port is the same game we’ve all played before

When I went to EGX 2017, I honestly couldn’t stand the thought of waiting in a forty-five-minute queue to play The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Sure, it’s a great game—the second best Elder Scrolls game, just after Morrowind—but it’s a game I’ve played hundreds of hours of before. Obviously, I eventually caved in, mostly because I wasn’t going to stand in a line for three hours just to play fifteen minutes of Mario Odyssey, and I was pleasantly surprised with this upcoming port to Nintendo Switch.

Nintendo Switch finally allows us to get the full-fat portable version of Skyrim we’ve all craved for years

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t the definitive version of Skyrim at all, that award goes to the PC, but Nintendo Switch finally allows us to get the full-fat portable version of Skyrim we’ve all craved for years. It looks great, albeit with some poor anti-aliasing, on the 720p screen and runs fantastically. While the visuals are still behind the PC, PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game, it’s leaps and bounds ahead of what we saw last generation, especially when it came to the PS3.

During my short demo session I didn’t get to play much, but I did get to take in the world of Skyrim once more. The demo was much like actual Skyrim in that it let me do whatever the hell I wanted. So I did what any rational Skyrim player would do if they only had twenty minutes to spare: Kill all of Whiterun’s non-important NPCs, steal a horse, travel to the nearest major city and do exactly the same. In just twenty minutes I became Tamriel’s very own angel of death.

There’s not really much to say about Skyrim that hasn’t already been said. To be completely honest, everyone who’s played a console version of Skyrim has already previewed the Nintendo Switch version. With the version being unmodable it’s really the lesser of the current-gen console versions in terms of content, although the factor of its portability does offer a brand-new sense of superiority over, say, Xbox One and PS4.

But we’ve all played Skyrim before. It’s one of the most popular RPGs of all time and I’m pretty sure that its Nintendo Switch port—and the future ports to every platform under the sun—will be as popular as ever. If you like Skyrim and want to buy Skyrim’s purest form on a fully portable medium, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on Nintendo Switch is exactly the game we all want but are cautious to buy for a third, maybe fourth, time.

For more of our EGX 2017 coverage read our previews of: Sonic Forces, Assassin’s Creed Origins and Super Lucky’s Tale.